Federal Funding Agency Policies

Federal funding agencies are implementing policies on data management and data sharing in a variety of ways. This page provides a brief summary of policies from major federal funding agencies.

Why the Federal requirement?

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-110 provides the federal administrative requirements for grants and agreements with institutions of higher education, hospitals and other non-profit organizations. In 1999 Circular A-110 was updated to provide public access under some circumstances to research data through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Federal Agency

Policies and Guidelines

Resources

Department of Energy (DOE)

DOE's CIO has primary responsibility to ensure that Information Technology (IT) is acquired and information resources are managed in a manner consistent with statutory, regulatory, and Departmental requirements and priorities. With this responsibility, the CIO provides information resources management advice and assistance to the Secretary of Energy and to other senior managers.

"The NIH expects and supports the timely release and sharing of final research data from NIH-supported studies for use by other researchers. ...[I]nvestigators submitting an NIH application seeking $500,000 or more in direct costs in any single year are expected to include a plan for data sharing or state why data sharing is not possible."

"Investigators are expected to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the primary data, samples, physical collections and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work under NSF grants. Grantees are expected to encourage and facilitate such sharing."

"Proposals submitted to NSF must include a supplementary document of no more than two pages labeled 'Data Management Plan.' This supplementary document should describe how the proposal will conform to NSF policy on the dissemination and sharing of research results."